


30 Photographs

by heydoeydoey



Category: Glee
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: 30 photographs in Kurt and Noah's lives.
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Noah Puckerman
Kudos: 5





	30 Photographs

**Author's Note:**

> 30 drabbles written for the puckurt June 2011 Daily Drabbles Challenge. My theme was photographs and most of the drabbles are standalones but I've grouped together any that are related.

_** Kurt and Noah ** _ ** mini-verse **

**Kurt and Noah, August 1998**  
Kurt is thumbing through his mom’s old photo albums when he finds the picture: two boys running towards a swing set, holding hands. The memory jumps into his head surprisingly quickly. _C’mon Kurtie, let’s swing!_

There’s something familiar about the other boy, but Kurt can’t place him. He slides the photo free from the plastic sleeve and flips it over, and he’s not quite sure he believes his mother’s annotation: _Kurt and Noah, August 1998_.

“Dad?” Kurt calls, getting to his feet and walking into the kitchen where Carole and Burt are making dinner and setting the table.

“What’s up?” Burt asks while he folds paper napkins.

“Do you know who this is?” He hands over the photo, ready for his father to tell him it’s some other Noah, some boy who moved away years ago.

“Yeah. And so do you.”

“Puck?”

“Yup. You two were thick as thieves.”

“Oh.” Kurt says quietly. He wants to ask what changed, but he already knows the answer: some little boys grow up to be the bullies, and other little boys grow up to be the bullied.

**Betrayal**  
When Puck gets to school, there are way too many people staring at him. He barely has time to try an intimidate an answer out of the chess club nerd gaping at him before Jacob Ben-Israel shoves a mic in his face.

“Noah Puckerman, would you like to take this time to deny the rumours that you now play for the other team?” Jacob asks, and Puck just blinks stupidly at him. “Before you answer, you might be interested to know that an anonymous source posted a scandalous and very NSFW photo of you on your knees performing oral sex on another male.”

It’s like he’s been sucker-punched in the gut. There’s only one fucking person in the world who has that picture. He pushes past Jewfro, intent on finding the douchebag who was his boyfriend until thirty seconds ago.

It’s not difficult. Dave strides toward him, flanked by Azimio and a bunch of other goons in letter jackets. They’re all carrying slushies, and he knows what’s going to happen.

“Well, look who it is.” Dave smirks, “It’s Puckerman the cocksucker.”

“You would know.” Puck snarls.

Karofsky snorts, “You wish.”

Before any of the football team can try to put two-and-two together, Karofksy hits him in the face with a grape slushy, and the rest of the guys follow suit until he’s shivering under a layer of grape, cherry, blue-raspberry and the disgusting green watermelon flavor nobody likes.

Everybody watches as he sloshes his way towards the bathroom. He’s about to go into the boys’ before somebody grabs his elbow and steers him into the girls’.

“The hockey team was waiting to jump you in there.” Kurt says, handing Puck a paper towel and a bag with a change of clothes. He wipes the slushy off of his face first. “Were you really dating Karofsky?”

“Yeah. It’s a long story.” Puck sighs and nods towards the handicapped stall as the bell rings. “I’m gunna change.”

“I have to go to English.”

“Okay.”

“If you ever want to talk...I’m here.” Kurt offers and it sounds like he means it.

“Thanks,” Puck says softly. Kurt nods before turning on the heel of his combat boots and walking out of the girls’ bathroom.

**Beginning**  
Puck starts spending a lot of time with Kurt. Kurt’s always been his boy, but they’ve never really been friends before and it takes some getting used to. Kurt has this way of looking at him sometimes that isn’t accusatory exactly, but like he’s trying really hard not to ask Puck something. Puck is pretty sure it’s _Why did you treat me like garbage when you knew exactly what I was going through?_ or _why didn’t you just_ _**tell**_ _me this was why you were such an asshole?_ or _why the fuck would you put Karofsky’s dick in your mouth?_ Puck doesn’t have the answers (or he does, but not ones he can put into words), but he figures Kurt either knows them already or knows that Puck can’t tell him.

“Hey Noah,” Kurt says, and it strikes a chord somewhere within him, hearing Kurt call him by his first name. There’s a familiarity there, like he’s done it thousands of times before.

“Yeah?” Puck can’t help but feel anxious. Kurt might start busting out all his _whys_ that Puck can’t answer.

“Look at this.” Kurt hands over a photo and Puck blinks down at it, recognising his backyard and the little boy with the messy mop of curls.

_Noooooah you’re running too fast._

Just like that Puck remembers the way Kurt used to draw out the first syllable of his name.

“This is us?” He asks, and he kind of wants to say _that’s totally crazy, dude_ , laugh and hand Kurt’s photo back. But he can’t, especially when Kurt is nodding at him, the corners of his mouth turned up a little bit like he’s not sure if it’s okay to smile. So Puck reaches out, sliding his hand into Kurt’s. Their fingers lace together on their own and Puck squeezes Kurt’s hand once. Kurt squeezes back.

It feels like a beginning.

**Kurt and Noah, August 2018**  
“Babe!” Noah calls through the quiet house. “I’m home.”

“Living room!” Kurt calls back. There are still half-unpacked cardboard boxes everywhere— seriously, Noah hopes they never move again because it’s ridiculous the amount of stuff they’ve each managed to gather in twenty-four years.

He sets the Chinese take out on the kitchen table and walks through to the living room, which is empty (they’re going furniture shopping tomorrow; Kurt deemed Noah’s old IKEA furniture tacky and unacceptable and Noah refused to put any of Kurt’s ugly modern furniture in their beautiful Brooklyn brownstone) except for two framed photos Kurt has just finished hanging on the wall.

He slips his arms around Kurt’s waist, pulling him flush against his chest. Kurt relaxes against him and they take a moment to look at the two photos. The one on the left is in color, blown up from its original size, two boys running towards a swing set holding hands. The one on the right is black and white, two men in tuxedos holding hands in the same backyard.

Noah can’t help but shiver slightly when he thinks about how close they came to missing each other: how Kurt almost never showed him the picture of them as four-year-olds; how Noah had almost shrugged and laughed it off when he did.

Instead, by some insanely lucky twist of fate, they’ve ended up here.

**Puddle**  
Puck missed all this the first time around. It’s strange, being _needed_ for things he was so deliberately excluded from before. He knows the situation is different this time, nothing accidental about it. But things like doctor’s visits, with Kurt clutching one of his hands and their surrogate, Isabel, squeezing his other, are totally foreign. And there’s designing the nursery, bickering about colours and fabrics and stuff Puck actually doesn’t care too much about (because seriously, as long as they’re having a baby, he really doesn’t give a fuck what colour the walls in the baby’s room are) but he debates with Kurt just to rile him up.

They’ve been arguing about names for ages. It isn’t easy like it was with Beth. The name doesn’t just appear perfectly in a song (although Kurt’s campaigning pretty hard for Jude). They can’t agree on anything, and Puck sort of loves every second of it. And if he borrows a page out of Finn’s book and suggests names like Puddle and Fog just to wind Kurt up, nobody really needs to know that.

His favourite part, though, are the pictures on the refrigerator. Slightly fuzzy black and white sonogram print-outs that he looks at when he sneaks a drink of milk right out of the carton or when he walks by to answer the phone or when he can’t sleep so he wanders out into the kitchen and just sits on the island, looking at his son. The most recent one is actually pretty clear, and Puck’s convinced as-yet-unnamed Baby Hummel-Puckerman is biologically Kurt’s. His tiny little face has the same nose, and the way he’s got it angled up in the air like he already knows how awesome he is...that’s _so_ Kurt.

Kurt catches him staring at the refrigerator door a lot, and usually he just smiles softly, coming to stand next to Puck, slipping an arm around Puck’s waist and pulling him close, before insisting that Puddle has the Puckerman chin, not the Hummel nose.

**Family**  
Noah cradles newborn Audrey to his chest while two-year-old Jude leans around him, peering at his baby sister. Noah isn’t looking at either of their children, he’s looking straight at the camera, and there’s pride all over his face. Kurt snaps the picture before setting the camera aside, scooping Jude up, and sitting next to Noah on the couch. Jude snuggles into Kurt’s chest, his thumb in his mouth and his eyelids drooping sleepily.

“They’re ours.” Noah says quietly, his voice awe-filled.

“I know.” Kurt says softly, leaning against his husband. “Love you.”

“Love you too. All three of you.”

_ **Promises** _ **and** _**Unconventional** _

**Promises**  
Puck looks at his life, packed into boxes in a shitty apartment on the other side of town from where he _should_ be. He’s a walking statistic: married right out of school, divorced before the marriage even got off the ground, the kids caught in the middle. He winces, thinking of Beth and Dylan, and can’t help glancing down at the photo he’s been carrying around in his pocket for weeks, a lump forming in his throat. His children, grinning at the camera, Beth missing teeth and Dylan wobbly on chubby toddler legs.

He grabs his phone, and for a moment he considers calling Quinn, but he knows begging for another chance is just going to end up hurting everyone involved.

Instead, he dials a number he memorised without even trying. Kurt answers on the first ring and Puck can’t help picturing him diving for the phone, racing to answer before Puck loses his nerve.

“Babe,” Puck says, his voice cracking. “I think I need you.”

“I’m on my way.” Kurt says in Puck’s ear, and Puck finally knows what an unbroken promise sounds like.

**Unconventional**  
Puck expects awkwardness, because he really doesn’t know how it could be anything _but_ awkward, being invited to dinner with your newly-pregnant ex-wife and her new husband who used to be your teacher, bringing along your husband and new baby to meet your other kids. He expects Beth and Dylan to feel usurped and displaced by Eli, and he expects tension between Kurt and Quinn.

So he is totally unprepared for his ex-wife and his current husband to start bonding over colicky babies (he barely remembers that Beth was colicky at all, her infancy is such a blur of sleeplessness and the absolute _what the fuck am I doing_ terror that came with being a teenage parent) and Beth and Dylan to start squabbling over who gets to hold Eli first. The least weird part is probably hanging out with Schue, since he was always more of a friend than a teacher.

He’s not sure why, but Will insists on taking a picture and when he emails it to them the next day, Puck sort of gets it, looking at his three children and Kurt and Quinn and Will and himself all crammed on the Schuesters’ couch. They’re unconventional, and they’ve certainly had their ups and downs, but they’re still a family.

**_Polaroid_ and _Funeral_**

**Polaroid**  
Puck finds the box when he’s home for Hanukkah. He’s sorting the stuff in his childhood bedroom, since his mom is selling the house and moving to Cleveland. The box is from an old pair of Nikes, and he almost tosses it right onto the trash pile. Just in case, he opens it. He already found fifty bucks going through his desk, so there’s a pretty decent chance he might find another cash stash. It’s not like he’s got cash to spare.

It’s not money. At first he thinks it’s just a random collection of junk, until he spots the corner of a silky scarf that triggers his memory. The fact that he’s already forgotten hurts more than remembering. He upends the box on his bed, sifting through movie ticket stubs and Post-it notes, a few CDs with _Noah’s Musical Education_ written in blue Sharpie across the front, the scarf and a photo.

When Britt discovered Polaroids, she decided they were “magic pictures” and started carrying her dad’s old Polaroid camera around all the time, snapping photos of whatever she felt like. This one is in Rachel’s basement after one of the Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganzas, and Puck and Kurt are both asleep on the couch, spooning. Puck remembers taking a lot of shit from people (mostly Santana) for being the little spoon.

He holds the Polaroid with shaking hands, staring down at Kurt’s face tucked against Puck’s neck, his eyelashes dark smudges against his cheeks and his arm tight around Puck’s waist, their fingers laced together.

Puck trashes everything else from the box (even the scarf, because really, it’s not his style and he doubts Kurt wants it back) but he keeps the picture, sliding it into his pocket until he thinks of something better to do with it.

**Funeral**  
He drives home to Lima for the funeral. It’s one of the most crowded Puck’s ever been to and that doesn’t surprise him. He slides into a seat in the back, because he isn’t really sure how welcome he is. He lost touch with the Hudson-Hummels pretty quickly after he and Kurt broke up.

There is a picture on the front of the program of Burt, still in his clothes from work, sitting at a tea party opposite an eight-year-old Kurt. And Puck figures it’s one of those photos that says a hell of a lot more than words ever could.

Kurt sniffles his way though the eulogy and Puck knows Kurt spots him one of the times he glances at the crowd gathered in the church, because his eyes lock with Puck’s and his breath hitches.

Carole hugs him tight when he finds her during the reception afterwards. Finn does the same and they both thank him for coming. He chickens out, choosing not to fight his way through the crowd to get to Kurt.

It doesn’t matter, because Kurt catches up to him in the parking lot, his fingers wrapping tight around Puck’s wrist to keep him from leaving.

“You came.”

“Of course. Your dad...he meant a lot to me.”

“I know.” Kurt looks down at his shoes. “He always told me you were a keeper.”

Kurt’s face crumples and Puck wraps his arms around him tightly. Kurt buries his face in Puck’s chest and Puck can’t help thinking he’s got a lot to thank Burt Hummel for.

_** Then ** _ ** and  _ Now _ **

**Then**  
Puck cradled Beth against his chest. She was tiny and warm, like a baby space heater, and making a little snuffling noise in her sleep that made him want to hold her a little bit tighter and never let go. Except he had to: they’d already signed all the papers and everything, Shelby was just being nice by letting him have a couple extra minutes with her.

Quinn was discharged from the hospital this morning, and she left with her mom without saying goodbye to him or their baby. Puck didn’t think he’d ever forgive her for making him be the one to give Beth to Shelby, mostly because he didn’t want to give Beth away in the first place. But he couldn’t raise her alone. He and Quinn could have done it together, but he couldn't do it by himself.

“Do you want me to take a picture of you two together?” Shelby asked when she got back from getting a watered-down coffee in the cafeteria.

Puck nodded, his voice catching in his throat. He didn’t look at the camera, he just stared down at his daughter because it was the last chance he had before he had to hand her over.

He didn’t make a scene, even though he wanted to. He passed Beth to Shelby, who promised to mail him a copy of the picture.

“Can you make her a copy too?” He asked. “You know, if she ever asks about me.”

Shelby nodded. “Thank you, Noah.”

Puck managed a half-hearted shrug before turning and walking away, every step breaking his heart just a little bit more.

He wasn’t sure why he drove to Hummel’s house. Maybe because the other boy was the only one who didn’t pick sides. Maybe because there had always been something about Kurt that drew Puck in, no matter how hard he tried to fight it.

Kurt didn’t invite him inside, and Puck figured after two years of slushy facials and dumpster tosses and pee balloons and locker checks, he sort of deserved that. They sat side-by-side on Kurt’s porch steps and when Puck started crying like a baby against Kurt’s shoulder, the smaller boy didn’t complain about snot on his fancy designer shirt. He just wrapped an arm around Puck’s waist and squeezed tight. It didn’t fix everything, but it dulled the aching in his chest a little bit. Right then, Puck figured that was all he could really ask for.

**Now**  
Puck doesn’t need the birth certificate she hands him to recognise his daughter. He steps aside, letting her into the house, wondering how long he has before Alex wakes up from his nap and Kurt gets home from work.

For a long moment, they stand staring at one another in the hallway, then Beth fishes into her backpack for something.

“Mom says you’d understand why I’m here if I showed you this.”

She hands him a photograph. He’s mohawked and too young, clutching a pink-blanketed bundle to his chest. He realises the photo was taken eighteen years ago, almost to the day.

He pulls Beth into a tight hug, and after a moment’s hesitation her arms wrap around his middle. It doesn’t fix everything, but it’s a start. Right now, Puck thinks that’s all he can really ask for.

_ **Right** _ **and** _ **Wrong** _

**Right**  
Looking at the picture of him and Puck singing a duet at Rachel’s after-prom party makes Kurt feel strangely like he’s cheating on Blaine. Which is stupid, because he and Puck aren’t _doing_ anything. They’re just singing. And looking at each other. And okay, Puck is sort of looking at Kurt like he’s seeing him for the first time. And Kurt is sort of looking back at Puck with a smile on his face wider than the time Blaine sang “Teenage Dream” at him.

Puck has his elbow draped around Kurt’s neck, and Kurt is tucked neatly against his side, fitting against him like a puzzle piece. If he thinks hard enough he can even sort of remember how it felt--warm and safe and good--with his body pressed up against Puck’s like that. He and Blaine just look so _awkward_ next to each other, like they don’t know how to occupy the same physical space. Obviously that isn’t a problem for Puck and Kurt. They look good together. _Right._ Kurt thinks that means something, and he doesn’t want to admit it scares him.

**Wrong**  
Stealing someone’s boyfriend is wrong. But Puck is too selfish to care. Not when he’s got his arms around Kurt and their lips are pressed together and their tongues are tangling and Kurt’s not protesting about Puck messing up his hair or wrinkling his clothes.

And it’s not like Puck was responsible for Kurt and Blaine breaking up. Not directly anyway. He kept his hands to himself until Kurt said he’d gotten rid of the hobbit. Puck actually feels pretty proud of that, since he isn’t very good at not going after what he wants. And he’s wanted Kurt for a long time.

He lets Kurt push him back onto the bed, and when he opens his eyes Kurt is smiling down at him. There’s a picture in a frame on Kurt’s nightstand, and it takes Puck a second to recognise it. When he does, he can’t help grinning at his new boyfriend.

“We look good together, babe.”

“We do. Even with you wearing that tacky cater-waiter jacket.”

Puck opens his mouth to protest, but Kurt is leaning forward, closing the distance between them again.

**Standalone drabbles**

**Miss Your Face**  
It starts with a silly text to Kurt. _i miss ur face. :(_

Puck waits for a reply, something that carries plenty of sarcasm even without a tone of voice, probably mocking him about text speak, schmoopiness, and the use of a sad face.

Instead, his computer nearly startles him out of his skin: _You’ve got mail!_

He pulls his laptop over and finds an email from Kurt in his inbox. _10 days until Thanksgiving_ , the subject line reads, and when he clicks on it he gets a picture of his boyfriend, grinning at the camera the way Puck hasn’t seen for real in too long. From what Puck can tell, he’s sitting in class and he took the picture with his webcam, because he can see some chick in the background frowning at the back of Kurt’s head like she’s wondering why he’s playing with Photobooth during a very important lecture on protecting your sources or whatever journalism majors learn about.

There’s a few sentences at the bottom of the email: _You’re such a sap, Puckerman. But I miss your face too._

Puck replies after taking a picture of his own, because he’s an awesome boyfriend that way.

**Just Friends**  
Kurt insists he and Puckerman are only doing the prom thing because they’re both recently single. They’re _just friends_ , Kurt says forcefully every time anyone even mentions that they’re going to prom together, so Burt doesn’t push the issue, even though he wants to.

While Carole helps Mercedes pin Finn’s boutonniere to his tux, Burt takes a few pictures of Puck and Kurt in their tuxes in the backyard. He manages to get a few of them unawares before Kurt notices and pokes Puck in the back to make him stand up straight and tells him to “stop smirking like an idiot”.

Burt doesn’t get a chance to look at the pictures until later, when the kids have left and he and Carole are curled up in front of the TV. Despite all of Kurt’s _just friends_ protests, pictures can’t lie. Burt knows what love looks like, and he can see it in the cautious way Puck smiles at Kurt, like he’s looking at something he’s afraid to want too much in case it slips away, while Kurt beams at Puck like he’s finally found the thing he didn’t even know he’s been searching for.

**Self Sabotage**  
Puck’s always been one to screw himself over. The minute something is going okay in his life, he likes to throw a wrench in, just to fuck things up for the hell of it. People were always trying to work out why he stole that ATM or why he knocked up his best friend’s girl or why he let a football scholarship slip right through his fingers. The only one who figured it out was Kurt.

“You just like to self sabotage, don’t you?” Kurt had asked. He’d been joking, mostly, his mouth turned up in the corners and his eyes bright.

Puck figures he probably isn’t laughing right now. Judging from the cold voice on his voicemail _I’m going home for a few days, plenty of time for you to get your stuff out of my apartment_ Puck doesn’t think Kurt’s going to be able to see the irony in this situation anytime soon. The fact that Puck fucked up the one thing he really wanted to keep...well, he guesses that must be karma.

Out of morbid curiosity, he takes another look at the photo that’s been circulating all the gossip sites since yesterday. He’s already looked a hundred times, probably, and it never gets any better. It’s grainy, snapped from a pretty good distance, but his mohawk has always been the best way to identify him. He doesn’t remember the girl’s name. He probably couldn’t pick her out of a lineup even if his life depended on it. Yet he traded his entire relationship (fuck, his entire _life_ ) for one unmemorable night and one destructive morning-after paparazzi photo.

**Where’s Waldo**  
Puck gets the shock of his life one morning when he’s walking into work (yeah, he’s a Starbucks barista and yeah, he’ll spit in your drink if you give him ‘tude about it) and realizes the billboard across the street that used to have a half-naked Victoria’s Secret model on it now has a very familiar face. Kurt Hummel smirks down at him, twenty feet tall and wearing nothing but a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

He thinks it’s just a fluke, until he starts seeing Kurt _everywhere_. Then he starts playing Where’s Waldo: the billboard in Times Square, Hugo Boss ad in the subway, the cover of Italian _Vogue_ (apparently a big deal), hanging in the window of Armani on Fifth, on and on and on. At first it’s just a joke, a way to amuse himself when he’s jogging or heading to a gig or out on his lunch break.

And then he finds the picture that wrecks him. Kurt, leaning back against a bar, looking like sex and James Dean. Puck has no idea what the photo is supposed to be selling, because every time he sees it all he can think about is getting his hands and his mouth all over Kurt and mussing up that perfect hair and getting Kurt out of those clothes.

He finds Waldo for real the day Kurt walks into his Starbucks. Puck’s not an idiot, he knows this is crazy good karma he doesn’t deserve after all the drinks he’s spit in, so he sends out a thanks to the universe and makes Kurt’s coffee, writing his number on the paper cup.

The rest, as they say, is history.

**Beautiful**  
Puck and Finn are having their annual end-of-semester video game marathon, and Kurt decides to keep it to himself how ridiculous it is seeing two twenty-one-year-olds playing Mario Kart and trash talking like twelve-year-olds.

“Hey, Kurt, can you pay the pizza guy?” Puck asks when the doorbell rings, nodding towards his wallet on the coffee table. “There should, like, fifty bucks in there.”

Kurt grabs Puck’s wallet and goes to answer the door. As he’s putting Puck’s change back, he notices a photo sticking out from behind Puck’s driver’s license. He knows it’s wrong to snoop, but curiosity gets the better of him and he slides the photo free.

It’s a school picture of a girl with glossy dark curls and a toothy grin, the spitting image of Puck. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she is.

Before Kurt can put the picture back and carry the pizza and wings into the living room, Puck appears next to him. For a moment he just looks at Kurt. Then he shrugs.

“She started kindergarten this year. Shelby sent me the picture.”

“I didn’t know you kept in touch.” Kurt says. It’s a stupid thing to say, because there’s obviously _a lot_ he doesn’t know about Puck.

“Yeah.” Puck nods.

“She’s beautiful.” Kurt offers. “She looks just like you.”

Puck grins wide, “You think I’m beautiful, Hummel?”

Before Kurt can think of a response, Puck is grabbing the pizza and walking back into the living room.

**Proof**  
Blaine told him he’s adorable, in a tone of voice that made Kurt feel like a six-year-old. Puck tells him he’s hot, while mouthing kisses down his chest and sucking a hickey onto his hipbone.

Blaine always touched him like he was putting on an act: awkward handholding on top of the table, his hand on the small of Kurt’s back, kissing his forehead. Puck touches him because he _wants_ to: his arm around Kurt’s waist when they walk, their knees pressed together when they sit next to each other in glee club, his arms around Kurt while they snuggle on the couch when Puck comes over for the weekly Hudson-Hummel movie night.

When Kurt insisted he had the sex appeal of a baby penguin, his first boyfriend didn’t argue. When he says it offhand to his second boyfriend, Puck pushes him down onto his bed, straddling Kurt’s hips and leaning close to his ear.

“You’re fucking crazy.” Puck hisses. “You’re the sexiest person I’ve ever been with.”

Puck sets out to prove it, and Kurt wonders if he should be worried at the number of photos and videos of him his boyfriend has on his phone.

**Mugshot**  
Puck knows it was stupid, but when he and Lauren broke into the office to get dirt on Quinn, he swiped his mugshot out of his permanent file. He didn’t even know the school _had_ his mugshot (he figures Mondale must have sent it over in his file when they let him come back to WMHS), but the second he spotted it he couldn’t leave it there, for assholes like Figgins and Coach Sylvester to pull out and smirk at what a fuck up he is.

He doesn’t intend to carry it around with him all the time, but if he puts it anywhere in his room his mom will find it and totally start bawling her eyes out about how he’s going to end up like his dad. If he leaves it in his locker Figgins might find it in during one of the random locker checks that always seem to happen exclusively to Puck and then the principal will know Puck broke into his filing cabinet, which is probably a one-way ticket back to juvie.

So Puck carries his own mugshot around in his backpack, wincing every time he catches sight of it, a reminder of the mistakes he’s made and how close he came to fucking up the rest of his life. Both his court-appointed lawyer and his mother wasted no time drilling it into his head how lucky he was that he wasn’t tried as an adult and the fact that he’d sobered up by the time the cops got around to actually booking him, so they couldn’t add a DUI to destruction of property and grand larceny.

Kurt is rooting through Puck’s backpack for a condom (because those are something Puck has around pretty much all the time now too—he learned his lesson with Quinn) when he finds the mugshot. He looks at Puck with wide, surprised eyes, all sense of urgency gone.

“Noah,” Kurt says softly. “Why are you keeping this?”

Puck shrugs, because he’s pretty sure Kurt already knows the answer.

“You aren’t that guy anymore.” Kurt insists, sitting down on Puck’s bed again. “You don’t even _look_ the same.”

And it’s true. Puck’s court-ordered therapist hasn’t cleared him for contact sports, which means he can’t play football, so he’s not as bulky. And the ‘hawk is gone. But Puck thinks Kurt is probably more focused on the way mugshot-Puck’s eyes are dead and empty.

“Rip it up.” Kurt suggests, and Puck’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Do it. It will make you feel better.”

Kurt hands the picture over and Puck rips it right down the middle. Kurt’s right. He does feel better, so he tears it again and again, until there’s nothing left but a pile of confetti on the bed.

**Stolen**  
Puck’s stolen a lot of stuff. His uncle’s watch, his best friend’s girl, those Cadbury eggs for Lauren, the ATM...but this is the first time he’s tried to steal somebody’s boyfriend. If he were a less selfish person, he’d probably feel bad about it. But all that matters to him is that Kurt is _his_.

Except he’s still kind of Blaine’s too. That stupid picture mocks him from the inside of Kurt’s locker, Blaine looking smug underneath his dumb eyebrows. It’s Blaine who gets to dance with Kurt at prom, Blaine who hangs out in the living room with Kurt’s parents. Puck gets stolen kisses in a bathroom stall after singing “Friday” and he always has to tiptoe past Burt and Carole or pretend he’s there to hang out with Finn.

He thinks about breaking into Kurt’s locker and stealing the picture. Except Kurt would know it was him right away, and he’d give Puck one of those looks, and say something like _I don’t appreciate you pressuring me_ or _who are **you** to judge me?_.

It takes Puck too long to realize Kurt was never really his. He ends up stealing Blaine’s picture out of spite, and has to endure the rest of senior year with Kurt sending him pitying, disappointed looks.

**Void**  
Kurt wishes he’d agreed to room with Finn at Ohio State when his stepbrother suggested it. But Kurt pointed out that their schedules and habits were totally incompatible and Finn agreed eventually. And then when everything happened this summer, the room assignments had already gone out and it was too late to try and switch, even though the last thing Kurt wants is to feel like he has to pretend everything is normal, when it’s never going to feel normal again. Not without Noah.

Kurt’s new roommate Oliver is nosy and reminds him a little too much of Blaine, with an aggressive cheerfulness and too much energy for any one person to have without some kind of amphetamine.

Oliver wanders over to examine the pictures Kurt has tacked to his bulletin board. “Who’s that?” He points to Finn in his zombie football gear after winning the conference championship junior year.

“My brother.” Kurt sighs. “He’s moving into a room down the hall right now.”

“Are you twins? You don’t look _anything_ alike.”

“Stepbrothers.”

“Oh. He your boyfriend?” Oliver nods at the picture of Noah, his arm around Kurt’s waist at Sam’s graduation party. Kurt’s heart twists uncomfortably in his chest. It’s the last picture they took together before...

“He was.” Kurt says softly and before Oliver can say anything more he wanders out into the hallway, crowded with people carrying boxes and suitcases and mini-fridges to their rooms. He walks into the bathroom, which is thankfully silent and empty. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials his voicemail with shaky fingers.

 _Hey babe. I got held up because the Kellers’ filter was clogged, so I’m running a few minutes late, but you guys can start dinner without me. Love you_.

Finn finds him sitting on the bathroom floor fifteen minutes later, and he sits down next to Kurt, wrapping him in a tight hug.

Sometimes, Kurt forgets he isn’t the only one who lost Noah forever. He forgets that Finn and Noah were best friends, that the accident tore Finn’s world apart too. He leans closer to his brother and squeezes his eyes shut, wondering if the Noah-shaped void in his life will ever go away. He’s torn between hoping it will and praying it doesn’t.

**Opportunity**  
Puck isn’t, like, keeping tabs on Kurt’s locker or anything, so he’s not sure how long the picture of the hobbit is gone before he notices. He still has his ransom note letters spelling _courage_ , but there’s a big empty rectangle where Blaine used to be, and it’s actually pretty sad.

It’s not as if Puck’s torn up about Kurt and Blaine breaking up (he’s actually pretty fucking thrilled, if he’s being honest with himself) but it sort of explains why Kurt hasn’t been himself recently. He and Kurt are friends now, and Puck can’t help asking about the missing picture.

“I, uh, noticed there’s a vacancy in your locker decorations.” Puck says quietly to Kurt.

They’re sitting at the back of the choir room, while Mr. Schue is rambling about Foreigner (Journey 2.0) and Kurt looks over at him with surprised eyes.

“Blaine and I decided we’re better off as friends.” Kurt says, his tone chilly and his lips pressed together and Puck thinks that means there really wasn’t any _we_ about it.

“He’s an idiot.” Puck says without thinking, and Kurt gapes at him. His teeth snick together when he closes his mouth sharply, and Puck figures that’s probably about the point that he puts all the pieces together.

Then he smiles slowly at Puck, and it feels like an opportunity Puck isn’t going to waste.

**Near** **Miss**  
Puck feels like an idiot, pretty much writing a novel underneath his own picture in Kurt’s yearbook. But there’s stuff he wants to say, _needs_ to say, and he doesn’t think he knows how to say it to Kurt’s face. He pours out his fucking _soul_ , practically, and when he and Kurt swap yearbooks back, disappointment hits him like a punch to the jaw. There’s only one sentence written in Kurt’s even handwriting under his picture.

He doesn’t exactly storm out of the choir room, but he doesn’t sneak out either. He just gets up and walks out and he can feel twelve pairs of eyes staring at him as he goes. It’s been a long time since he was _this_ wrong. He’s been assuming for a while now that he and Kurt are on the same page, and it turns out they’re in completely different books after all.

He’s halfway to his truck when he hears someone jogging to catch up with him. He knows it’s Kurt, knows his stride and what his Doc Martens sound like.

“Noah.” Kurt says, his breath hitching in a way that tells Puck he’s about to start crying or something. As much as he wants to get in his truck and drive away, he also doesn’t want to leave this with nothing more than a _Good luck at Ohio State -Kurt_. He stops and turns around.

“Everything you said...” Kurt says, his hand reaching out to close around Puck’s. “Same here. I just didn’t know how to say it.”

He pulls Puck closer, until they’re kissing in the middle of the parking lot.

**Apology**  
The screen of Kurt’s iPhone lights up brightly--the stupid picture Puck took, making his _I’m Finn Hudson, quarterback of the football team_ face--and Kurt stares down at it, hesitating in his surprise. He’s always surprised when Puck is the one who caves first.

“Hi.” Kurt whispers.

“I’m sorry.” Puck says, his voice sounding ragged and sad. “I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Me neither. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow?” Kurt hates the uncertainty in his voice, but it’s always there after fights like this one.

“Yeah. Sweet dreams, babe.”

“Sleep well, Noah.”

**Bossy**  
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?”

“Honestly, Noah. You’d come back with some eighties powder blue monstrosity if I let you pick out your tux alone.”

“Isn’t it bad luck? For you to see it?”

“Is either of us a bride?”

“No. Thank fuck.”

“Then I don’t think we need to worry about it.”

“Jeez, babe, a little warning before you go all paparazzi on me next time. Who are you texting?”

“Your sister.”

“ _Seriously_?”

“Yes. She wanted to come along, but she’s studying for finals, so I’m sending her pictures.”

“What, so my tux doesn’t get to be a surprise?”

“It’s just a _tux_ , Noah. Put that back. You can’t wear brown. I’m wearing grey and we’ll clash.”

“Babe, it’s my wedding, I can wear whatever I want.”

“It’s my wedding too, so you’ll wear what I tell you to.”

“Bossy.”

“You love me.”

“Well, duh.”

**Like Postcards, But Better ([Everything verse](http://hey-doey-doey.livejournal.com/26298.html#cutid1))**  
Puck pretty much survives on Skype dates and badly timed phone calls and emails with photos of his family attached. This is the fourth time they’ve done the tour separation thing, and it never gets any easier. It just gets more difficult, really, because now instead of leaving behind his boyfriend, he’s leaving behind his husband _and_ his two-year-old sons.

He and Kurt started sending each other pictures sometime during the second tour. “Like postcards but better,” Kurt had said, and Puck had been pretty willing to agree to anything Kurt suggested, considering the break-up that had almost happened during the first tour.

He and the band finish their show in Chicago and head back to the hotel. Now that they’re on their fourth tour, they’re just in it for the music, not the groupies and the after-parties. They all retreat into their rooms and fire up their laptops, checking emails and making phone calls.

Puck has an email from Kurt, and he clicks on the paperclip next to the subject line, opening the attachment. Dylan is clutching a gummi worm in his chubby fist, holding his hand out like he’s offering it to Puck, while Tyler grins at the camera, chocolate pudding all over his face and in his hair. Kurt is crouching between their high chairs, his face level with theirs, his smile a little bit tired around the edges and Puck wonders if he knew there was a smudge of pudding on his forehead when he took the picture. Knowing Kurt, probably not.

Puck feels an intense burst of longing to be home, to be able to laugh with Kurt about their sons and eat dirt pudding with them. He saves the picture with the others he’s collected over the tour and goes back to the email.

_Happy Birfday Papa!  
Love Dylan, Tyler and Daddy_

**Mothers**  
As excited as Kurt was, helping Carole plan the wedding, he didn’t quite realise how difficult today would be. He’s happy for his dad and Carole, and he’s sort of intrigued by the idea of having a brother from another mother, but he can’t help missing his own mother. It’s like there’s a weight pressing down on his chest all day, and after dinner he slips outside for some fresh air while everybody dances.

He pulls out his wallet, sliding the picture of his mom free. She’s round-faced and pregnant, looking at the camera mid-laugh. It’s his favorite picture of her, but he doesn’t look at it nearly as often as he used to.

He jumps in surprise when the door swings open behind him and turns to see Puck standing awkwardly with his hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” he nods at Kurt, coming to stand next to him. “Whatcha doing out here?”

“Getting some air.” Kurt says.

Puck leans over his shoulder, looking at the photo. “Is that your mom?”

“Yes. I didn’t know I would miss her so much today.”

For a moment, Puck looks surprised at Kurt’s candor. “You look like her.”

“Yeah.” Kurt agrees softly.

“Carole’s awesome. She’s sort of like my second mom.” Puck sighs. “I guess what I’m saying is that there’s no such thing as too many parents. Especially when you only had one for so long. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” Kurt nods. Puck inches over until they’re standing close enough for Kurt to feel the heat radiating from Puck’s body, their shoulders pressed together. “Thanks, Puck.”

“No problem.” The mohawked boy shrugs.

**Sincerity**  
Puck isn’t trying to eavesdrop. He just happens to be picking up a frappa-whatever thing for Lauren on his way to school and he overhears Kurt talking to Eyebrows about New York. He’s shaking the chocolate powder on top of the whipped cream the way Lauren likes when he hears Blaine tell Kurt he loves him, somehow managing to make it sound like an insult (to Puck’s ears, anyway).

He sneaks a glance over his shoulder and sort of wishes he could take a picture of Kurt’s face, because the expression is pure terror. Kurt says ‘I love you too’, but the words tumble out of his mouth so quickly that they’re obviously a lie. Blaine doesn’t seem to notice, though, since he never really pays attention to what Kurt says anyway.

Five years later, Puck can’t help remembering the terrified expression on Kurt’s face. The mental picture flashes into his mind right as he says it, and he braces himself to see that expression again. Instead, a slow smile spreads across Kurt’s face and he curls his hand around Puck’s jaw, his thumb stroking Puck’s cheekbone.

“I love you too, Noah.” The sincerity of the words is written all over Kurt’s face, and Puck squeezes his eyes shut, breathing a sigh of relief. Like before, he wishes he had a camera, but he figures he’s got a pretty good chance of seeing Kurt smile this way again.


End file.
